All Color Matters

The vegan community can rejoice today. Starbucks will no longer use cochineal ( koch-i-neel ) extract in their Strawberries & Crème Frappuccino® and Strawberry Banana Smoothie. Other products such Raspberry Swirl Cake, Birthday Cake Pop, Mini Doughnut with pink icing, and Red Velvet Whoopie Pie will continue to be produced with the ingredient until June of this year. The tip-off that lead to an online post (hosted by the website thisdishisvegetarian.com ) was given last month by a barista working at a midwest Starbucks. A petition was posted on change.org and PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) also joined the fray to show their support. All aforementioned parties later applauded the policy change today on their respective blogs. Fleeting as some stories are, time will be the final judge on whether this story has any lasting impression on consumers. Approved by the FDA , cochineal has a long and illustrious history . With a positive nod toward social respons...

Call me a tree-hugging-organic-food-composting-Mom. I’m proud that my household bans artificial foodstuffs from our pantry (low these past 16 years). Riddled with guilt afterwards, I do occasionally cave to my daughter’s desire for mac and cheese in the blue box (if it’s the only choice my picky eater will agree to on a restaurant’s kid’s menu). Outside of this occasional transgression, I do my best to read packages and question ingredients that either have number designations next to color names or the word artificial in them. It comes at no surprise that a movement is slowly building to spotlight the amount of artificial colors found in many popular foods. Many consumer advocacy organizations such as The Center for Science in the Public Interest believe that synthetic food dyes (specifically Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 60) may be linked to behavioral problems (hyperactivity) in children. This group recently asked the U.S. government to ban the dyes—or at least require manufacturers ...

How would you feel if you heard a piece of music and the taste of chocolate simultaneously occurred in your mouth? Or, you instantly saw a color in response to a smell? The root of these dual sense experiences are typically caused by a perceptual condition called synesthesia . After learning about synesthesia from a recent Nova program that aired on PBS television, I was compelled to dig a little deeper to try and understand this human phenomenon.   Coming from the Greek roots syn , meaning ‘together,’ and aesthesis , meaning ‘sensation’, synesthetes have sensory experiences well beyond what an average person would. When one sense turns on; such as hearing music, an automatic engagement of a second distinct sense (seeing a color) blends together to create a convergence of sensory perception. Many types of “sensory pairings” can occur with synesthesia. It’s estimated that an upwards of sixty or so may exist. Some of these pairings however, are far more common than others and i...

After trumping Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in 2 rounds of Jeopardy! last month, Watson (the IBM supercomputer) was finally on the receiving end of defeat.  A congressional showdown pitting Watson against Reps. Bill Cassidy (R., La.), Jared Polis (D., Colo.), Jim Himes (D., Conn.) and Nan Hayworth (R., N.Y.). was held in Washington, to help promote the importance of government research funding and science education. Five-time Jeopardy! veteran, nuclear physicist, and Congressman from New Jersey Rush Holt took the machine champion to task by winning the match with a score of $8,600 to Watson’s $6,200. Thank you Congressman Holt for redeeming our species a little while longer! Article: Congressman vs. the Machine: Rocket Scientist Rep. Rush Holt Bests Watson (published in PBS News Hour 3/1/11)

Tonight will conclude the epic three-night Jeopardy battle to prove if the human brain can still out-pace a computer’s. Last night we were (once again) informed via Alex Trebeck, of the technological nuances of Watson’s programming. We were briefed on how long it took Watson to be built, his components, and programming, I however was more interested in seeing any visual reaction he would display through his avatar. I applaud the IBM team for being mindful of the potential emotional drama an audience feels when seeing a contestant sweat. Since Watson lacks a face, IBM chose to construct a flat panel display which projects an avatar controller (IBM’s Smarter Planet icon encased with spinning arcs of colors). This a welcome departure from the cold glowing red stare of Hal from the 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Digital artist Joshua Davis worked with the IBM team to help give Watson his "face". Programmed with 27 states (ranging from correct answers to Daily Doubles) ...

Parents realize that their child’s ability to recognize color is just as important as mastering ABC’s and simple words. Educators also use color recall to detect possible developmental problems, or color vision deficiencies (color blindness) when teaching preschoolers. (In the United States, about 7 percent of the male population – or about 10.5 million men – and 0.4 percent of the population female has a color vision deficiencies. The most common being red–green color blindness—difficulties in discriminating red and green hues). Color ID can still be a hurdle for children in some instances, regardless of any learning/health issues. Recent findings suggest that a majority of parents and educators have been approaching the learning process incorrectly for sometime. An article published in the July issue of Scientific American proposes a simple language based solution—that color names should be used as nouns rather than adjectives when describing an object. The transposing of words ...